City Council - Regular Meeting

Alright. Good evening, everyone. It's 06:31, so I will call this Tiger City Council and Town Center Development Agency meeting to order. City recorder, Crager, would you please please conduct a roll call?

Councilor Shah. Here. Council President Wolf. Here. Councilor Anderson.

Here.

Councilor Goudisi.

Present.

Youth Councilor Hellick.

Mayor Hu.

Here.

Councilor Robbins. Here. Councilor Slack.

Here. All

right, thank you. Will everybody please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, and youth counselors joining us right now. City teammate and council, do you have any non agenda items?

None from us, Mayor.

Seeing none, let's move on to public comments. The public comment period provides an opportunity for members of the public to address the city council. While it is not a dialogue, either I or staff will follow-up to address the issue brought forward in these comments. The calling number is (503) 966-4101, and those wishing to comment should call now to get into the queue. Anyone present wanting to comment should sign up on the public comment form at the front of the room. First item is written comment. There were no written comment received by the Monday noon deadline. Next is in person comment. Do we have anybody sign up?

No? No, we have none.

Okay. Okay, yes.

He'll be

a video commenter.

Yeah, he's doing video comment. So, all right. So, Mr. Ben, are there any callers in the queue?

No callers in the queue.

And we have Mr. Dalen in video ready to provide video comments. Is that right?

I'm ready.

Yes. All right. Hi, Robert. Welcome. And once you state your name and where you live, you have two minutes.

Hi, Mayor, Council. Good evening, and thank you for giving me this time. My name is Jeff Darland and I'm a resident here in Tigard and a water rate mayor. Oregon law is clear, new development must pay its proportionate share of infrastructure costs. Existing residents should not carry the burden alone.

That is why precisely why system development charges or STCs insist. My concern, however, is that Tigard's water STCs may not be living up to that promise. Since 2013, the city has paid over $85,000,000 in water bond debt service to build our system. Of this, SDCs contributed $0 This is despite the fact that the city's own financial audits pledge DCs to the servicing of these bonds. It is also worth noting that since at least 2016, the city's auditor has highlighted this discrepancy in every annual comprehensive financial review.

To address this, I ask the council to formally authorize the use of development fees to pay debt, sir, to direct city staff to determine the overpayment by ratepayers and begin a plan to reconcile these funds and include these obligations in all future SDC determinations to ensure long term fairness and do these things before commencing or commissioning any new capital projects related to water. Thank you for your time and for ensuring fairness to all Tigard residents. That's the end of my statement.

Thank you, Jeff. And we already we also received written comment from you. So, we will respond to your public comment. Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright. So next, we move on to city manager report. We have acting city manager Trish to give a brief report. Good evening.

Good evening, mayor, council, and teammates, as well as members of our community. I have, two items I'd like to highlight for community members this evening. First, I'd like to make, people aware of the upcoming joint town hall happening this Saturday from 02:30 to 4PM at the Public Works Auditorium on Burnham. The city is pleased to host some of our state elected officials for a town hall where there'll be a question and answer portion at the end. Attendees can submit questions for that Q and A at the event or when they RSVP.

More information is available at the City of Tigard website. For our student aged community members, I want to highlight a great opportunity with the If I Were Mayor contest that's formally kicked off. This program invites elementary, middle, and high school students to share their vision for Tigard through posters, essays, and digital media presentations. It's a wonderful opportunity for young people to reflect on leadership, civic responsibility, and the future of our community, and to share these ideas directly with Mayor Hu. We're currently reaching out to local schools and encouraging participation with submissions due Sunday, March 29.

We look forward to seeing strong engagement from students across Tigard and look forward to celebrating their creativity and insight. You can learn more about this opportunity on the city's website as well. That's all for me. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Adkins City Manager Trish. Yeah, I'm looking forward to those two events. Counselor, do you have any comments or questions? Alright, Seeing none, let's move on to the next item on agenda, which is adopt 2026 federal legislative agenda. And assistant to the city manager Hendrix will present this item. Good evening.

Good evening, mayor and council. Good to see you. My name is Nicole Hendricks, assistant to the city manager. So we're asking council tonight to consider adoption of the city's 2026 federal legislative agenda and any edits you may have with that. Next slide, please.

Our recommendation is to adopt the agenda based on the language provided in your meeting packet, and that includes, next slide, please, the guidance from counsel since bringing this forward back in December, for initial conversation. And so the focus is gonna be on project specific funding requests that includes our public safety facility and seventy second ab corridor improvements, as well as policy around transportation and infrastructure, transit reauthorization bill, and affordable housing. And so I'll hand it back over to you to get direction on next steps.

Thank you, Nico. Who would like to start? Councilor Shah, please.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the update. And couple just follow-up questions. I know in the past we've talked about zip codes and the fact that we want to become our own city. We didn't have a postmaster. So I know that had been on a previous legislative agenda. So curious if that was something we are dropping. And then I have some other suggestions, which I can go over after.

Thanks. Yeah. So I don't think we heard specific interest in keeping it. And we are still part of national we joined a coalition of cities who are looking to do this. So we're still doing the work as part of the coalition, but we're not, we didn't include it on the agenda just because we didn't hear the the direct interest. But if we wanna keep that, that is an option.

I myself would have direct interest, but we'll leave it also up to the counselors, fellow counselors, the mayor to decide. And I'm also wondering, because of the work with Washington County, if we can also add support to the community development block grant program funding. And and I apologize for not getting these to you in advance. Also, supporting the community fueling infrastructure, the CFI program. And I know Twalton is a lead of that, but it'd be great as one of the partners if we can say we support that as well. And I can certainly send this to you too as well, Nicole.

That'd be helpful.

Thank you. And I know railroad crossings is be has an issue, certainly on the transportation committee. So there's also support the railroad crossing elimination program, and that's something we might want to also include. And again, these are suggestions. There's also and I'm not sure where this one lands, the tax exempt bonds.

I know in the past, it also been on our radar. It'd be nice if one item had been solved at the federal level, but I'm not hopeful at this point. Also, opposing any changes to our federal emergency management agency given the fires we've had here and potential for the summer. And then also in this, I know that we were very concerned about cuts to programs that might be negative against Tigard's most vulnerable populations, so like Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP. And then I wasn't sure from an economic development standpoint, and I had not formulated any thoughts there if there was, any potential economic development funding programs we could go after.

But I know something near and dear to counselor Anderson's heart is the 99 study, and wondering if there's an opportunity there for federal dollars. I know it's more state, but maybe there could be an opportunity. So just some thoughts for both Nicole and then our my fellow counselors and the mayor.

Okay. That's a lot. So I will maybe we need to come back. I I can ask the interest of the council. Any anybody against any of the thing that councilor Shah would like to be added? Councilor councilperson Wolf, please go ahead.

Thank you, mayor. And hopefully, I'm not echoing too badly. A couple things. I guess in in limited resources and trying to be focused and targeted, I would want to maybe limit some of the recommendations, which are all wonderful things that counselor Shaw is thinking of. I personally, at this point, in focus on the ZIP code, that's not a priority for me in terms of really putting energy towards seventy second and going after that.

I know that's different for, you know, dollars on seventy second versus a study. But I I just wanna be mindful from staff's perspective of what does that list look like, what resources make sense. I like the idea of collaborating and supporting our partners, whether that's, you know, the work that Tualatin's heading up or Washington County. And so I guess my focus would be, to focus on the, partner supports and then also the community block grants. I never thought that HUD might be an issue, but, that could be.

So I appreciate councilor Shaw bringing that up. Otherwise, I would defer to fellow counselors and staff in terms of resources, adding all those items to the list. And thank you, councilor Shaw, for creating such a a a thorough list. Thank you, mayor.

Councilor Schlack?

Thank you, mayor. And I'd like to thank you, Nicole,

and the

team for, slowing down our federal legislative agenda. I know I was an advocate for that one. This previously came before council just to make sure that our legislative agendas were as fresh and and up to date and relevant as possible for Tiger's interests. And I think it's what I appreciate about doing this is we've gone from the 2025 agenda, which was previously proposed to just be approved for 2026. Now we have a relevant sort of outline of of the projects from that that should continue, and I think it makes it a lot easier than to consider councilor Shah's considerations.

I'm not against further consideration of the items that councilor Shah brought up. I do wonder if a compromise could be approving the current legislative agenda for 2026 and then maybe teeing those up for the 2027 agenda. But I'm open to further consideration of her items. And thank you for the work you've done so far.

Thank you. I'll go this way. Councilor Anderson, which way are you leaning? Add all those items or table these until addition until next year or any specific item you really would like to see this year?

I don't know how deep they go. I think they read the first page and that's pretty much it. Okay. So, nice clean bullet points and

good points for sure.

You had a long list, and you are so much more informed than me, because this is your job. What was the second one? There was community development block grants,

and then there was railroad crossing, and there was something in between. Absolutely correct, councilor Robbins. Support the community fueling infrastructure, the CFI program. That was a $15,000,000.15 city grant that we partnered with the city of Tualatin, and that's for charging infrastructure

in the So electric vehicle charging?

Correct. Could be electric bikes, be electric scooters Okay. Could be electric wheelchair charging as well.

I think some of I think if we do everything, the list gets too long. But right now, our list is very short in focus, so I would be open to adding some of those, especially things like the community fueling that we have supported in the past. The zip code is really low on my priority list, and I think with the current state of the federal government, it's not going to go anywhere. So, I guess I'm jaded. But some of those seem like things that I think we should add.

Can you be more specific for staff or

The list? Maybe So I don't know what it means to eliminate a railroad crossing.

So maybe maybe

So maybe we need

to discuss some this. Another meeting to get more detail.

I mean, do we it's twenty minutes. Do we have a few more minutes to discuss?

No. Go go ahead. Go ahead.

So perhaps I could compromise because I do hear both councilor Slack and council president Wolf. Perhaps we do a prioritized list. So the priority would be the 7 72nd Avenue, corridor improvements, public safety facility, and then we could send her that support. Because if we're supporting the community development block grants, we're supporting our Washington County brethren. If we're saying community fueling infrastructure, we're supporting 15 other cities, including ourselves.

For supporting the Railroad Crossing elimination, it's Twalton, Beaverton, Us, and I probably LO, and there may be one other in there I'm missing. And then it's just up to us if we wanna say we oppose the curbing Medicaid, Medicare, or SNAP benefits to our less fortunate and more vulnerable population. So we could narrow it down that way, Mayor, if that's

Are are you suggesting we keep the agenda language and then add addendum, say these are additional thing we also support or if I understand correctly?

Yeah. I was thinking, making just prioritize. So the project specific funding request would be like, I don't know, we want a number on, but bullet public safety facility, Bullet 72nd Avenue quarter improvement. And then really the policy priorities don't have anything within NSA underneath them. So I could say is, support policy priorities and we can still, if we wanna keep those or integrate the one I'm suggesting into those because they wouldn't integrate.

Okay. Councilor Gaudoucy.

Thank you, mayor. I like a lot of your ideas. I, on the other hand, do feel like the ZIP code would be a great idea. I think it would help with Tigard branding, I do think that that would help create a sense of identity here in Tigard. But that's me personally.

Youth Counselor, do you have anything that you think we should add to the agenda language?

I like everything that Counselor Shah has to say about it. You know, we all do. But I am a little bit hesitant on the zip code stuff because I just like councilor Robin said, I feel like it's just not gonna gonna happen, but I like everything else.

Okay. Councilor Schlach, go ahead.

Sounds like there is general interest in some combination of the additional ideas that councilor Shah has proposed. Would the council be open to councilor Shah providing that list to Nicole and team so they can be further evaluated and then we could come back in an appropriate amount of time to review another draft of it. Would folks be appropriate or consider that appropriate as opposed to trying to amend things on the fly? Yeah.

Is there any is there any

go go ahead.

Is there a specific timeline that we have to have these

put together? Yeah. I'm asking is there a timeline?

So no. No? Okay.

I mean,

we're we're gonna continue working on these things with our with or without. Yeah. You know? So we can come back if that's helpful just so we are clear on what the final list looks

like. My my microphone keep turning itself off. So given the tentative schedule we have right now, I think the earliest we can do is May or late April. So

we're actually going to begin the work of planning for the legislative, the long session in July. And typically, we do the state and federal in parallel. And so happy to bring this item back in May. I just wanted to acknowledge, I think Councilor Schlach mentioned that we'll have the opportunity to take another look and dig in more on the federal agenda. For the near term, recognizing we do have some counselors going to DC soon, I'm happy to have Counselor Shah's list and create an agenda document, I I suppose probably not before the National League of Cities, but I do wanna recognize that we will be revisiting this topic here in the summertime in order to be prepared for '27.

So, councilor Shah, would you like to have piece of documents or for your visit to DC or

Both councilor Anderson and I will be going. And I think we're fine with just focusing on the public safety, the 72nd Avenue quarter, and maybe just the community development block grant because I know that could be in jeopardy. But I think that's gonna be plenty for the the two to three days we're there. And no talking points are here, so I think we're we're comfortable with that. So this could be suitable to review for May.

Okay. So for now, just these and the community block grant. And I have a couple added because you asked for it. So I just have I'm not sure about the word green, green infrastructure green facility. So I will prefer something like energy efficient rather than green because green is too big.

And the very first sentence, during our best day and our worst, I propose to say Tiger is committed to maintaining reliable public safety and emergency response services under both normal conditions and during major emergencies. That's my proposed substitution for the first sentence. Other than that, I'm fine. And then added the emergency, the block grant. I think we are we can come back in May. That's good enough for now.

Okay. So we'll come back in May if possible with the agenda with the edits that you have and then the list that you propose and kind of blending the feedback.

Yeah. K. Yeah. Alright. Any any other comments or questions? I don't see council president Wolff raising her hands. So alright. So thank you, Nicole. Thank you. Alright.

So that's All right, so the next item is Town Center Development Agency item. So that's convene the TCDA board. So the TCDA board will be talking about former Tiger Cinema site, and redevelopment manager Farley will give the staff report. And there's a slide presentation. Good evening.

Good evening, Chair Hu and the directors of the Town Center Development Agency. Tonight, we're providing an update on the cinema site and a discussion of potential next steps. The action request we'll be making is to get Board direction on whether to begin a request for qualifications process to select a developer for a portion of the site. Next slide. So to recap, in August 2025, the TCDA acquired the 10.89 acre site, formerly home to the Regal Tigard Simbas.

Next slide. Goals for the site to provide the Triangle's first neighborhood park, serve a very fast growing area. Second goal is to build out the necessary street and trail infrastructure through the property, to restore Red Rock Creek, which flows through the property, including new storm water sewer facilities. And then the last goal is to redevelop a portion of the property that won't be used for a park. Next slide.

So the activities that have occurred most recently, as you probably noticed, the Red Rock Creek stabilization project is well underway. It's on track to be completed this summer. When that construction is complete, we're going to promote walking and biking through the site as a safer alternative to walking to Pacific Highway rather than 72nd Avenue. So just a small improvement, maybe a couple of signs and some paint just to encourage people to walk through the site rather than down 72nd Avenue, which as we know is substandard. And it's we're providing temporary lease for Costco employee parking to defray some of the costs.

One other thing to add that we did make an ask in the last legislative session for a $1,500,000 capital construction grant. We were not successful in that endeavor. The major activity we've done is community engagement. Next slide. Community engagement helped determine the future of the site.

Our major activities are shown here. Community development get together in October, briefings to various boards and commissions, meetings with Triangle residents, and a couple of tabling events, And an online survey, which had three twenty two participants. Next slide. I'd like to highlight a couple of the questions and results. So the question, what should we put in the park?

What features do you most want to see? Top four responses were walking biking trails, a playground, picnic areas, shelters, and then natural green space. Next slide. To the question, what else does the Triangle community need most right now? The top responses were shown entertainment options, food options, community spaces, and housing.

And the complete survey results are in your packet. Next slide. We also did some engagement with the real estate community, interviewed 16 regional industry professionals. The key takeaways from those discussions were that currently Portland regional real estate market is kind of lackluster, but developers are keeping their eye on future sites. To I, everyone agree, The Triangle is very attractive for apartments, attractive place for development.

Cinema site also attractive, but the required street infrastructure could be a financial hurdle. Next slide. So in the memo that's in your packet, I walked through four potential scenarios, going through all the pros and cons in them. So I'm not going to go through all of that material, except for the recommended one. But the four scenarios that are discussed is redevelopment first.

That is rebuilding or sorry, redeveloping the non park section first. They would build out some of the shared infrastructure, street infrastructure, and then the park could be designed and then constructed soon after the redevelopment is completed. Second alternative would be a joint development, so simultaneous development of the park and redevelopment, basically being joint partners with the developer. Third scenario would be to build the park first, and then sell off a piece for redevelopment. And the last scenario would be doing all public development of the site, a park, and then some additional community uses.

Next slide. So we do staff does recommend the redevelopment first. And next slide. And laid out the pros and cons here. So if they're done separately, you're keeping the projects clearly separated.

You're reducing the risk of private development having to pay prevailing wage. I go into detail on that in the memo, but suffice to say prevailing wage are the higher wages that public agencies pay on public projects. Private developers don't usually pay that. So if they did have to pay prevailing wage, there would be, you know, a bigger financial gap to fill, most likely. Another pro is that if we build a park later, gives us time to assemble funding, including more TIFFBACK borrowing, the SDCs that are generated by the project, and then also going after grants.

The cons, there are some, you know, not getting the economies of scale if street infrastructure is built sequentially that you would get if you did all the development together. And then also the cost of building out the infrastructure could make the private development less feasible. Street the frontage improvement on seventy second will probably be a fairly expensive undertaking. Next slide. So if we do get the board's approval, this would be the potential timeline shown here.

It's about eighteen months doing an RFQ, releasing it in the next couple months, doing a final developer selection. Likely, we'd want to develop a short list of developers to have them provide more information. And with the selected developer doing a memorandum of understanding, the board would have to approve that. And then there will probably be at least six months, if not more, on negotiating all the details of the development agreement while the developer works on the site, works on the financial side of it, and you know, the details of the building. So then, after that is negotiated, the board of the TCDA would have the final approval of that.

So next slide. So I wanted to leave plenty of time for questions and discussion.

Thank you, Sean. And just to be clear, you would like our the board's direction on this one of the four scenarios. That's the main purpose of this. Okay. So before we do that, Counselor, do you have any question for Sean before we start discussing the four scenarios that you will recommend staff recommend the first option? Councillor Anderson, please go ahead.

Hey, Sean, do you have a zoning map or any type of preference to where you like the development? Is it going be on the corners or in the back or how is it going to work? So if we go back to the can we

go back to third slide, I think? Yeah. So that is a concept slide that may or may not look like that in the end. But we wanted to kind of lay out what it could look like. So in this idea, the park is on the northern is the northern parcel that is fronting Red Rock Creek and the improvements going on there. The one to the south, I guess, call it, would be the redevelopment parcel. It's about two and a half acres. As for the zoning, it is a triangle mixed use, so it allows a variety of uses.

So it is zoned currently right now?

Yeah. Okay. Got you. Thanks. Any other questions? Councilor Robbins.

Thank you.

Thank you for this, Sean. I was curious. So, when I was at the League of Oregon Cities conference last year, there was a presentation about sustainable home ownership of affordable housing. And so, basically, we build houses, and we I think it's that we own the land, but the person buys the house. And then, it's said that they make 3% equity per year, they make the payments, and you get special funding.

So they have, like, a 0% mortgage through, and that funding is available. And then when they sell the house, the next person gets to buy it at affordable housing costs, and it's a way to is there any space for anything like that within this development? I realize that we don't wanna do all of that, but could we consider duplexes or little homes or something for part of that?

So that sounds like the community land trust model. Yeah. I I think that could definitely be part of this. You know, if we do get the board's direction tonight, the intent is to work with the TCAC on kind of some of the goals that we'd be wanting to see in a the goals that we will put into the RFQ to ask the developers to address. So that could be put down as a potential goal, and if the developer responds and see if there is a way to do that.

Or we could make it a we definitely want that in there as well. We're kind of in the driver's seat. We also have to be realistic financially, see what pencils out. But I think including affordability goal goals, workforce housing would be very appropriate as a as a goal for a developer.

I personally think that's a great idea. I got that at that conference, and it seems like a great way for us to increase housing ownership and affordable housing without just building another affordable housing apartment complex. You know, a way to help people get into the home ownership at that basic level, and so then they can move up to the next level. So I would love to see that, but I realize I'm one of seven, so.

So for this developer outreach, are we telling them what we want or are we trying to listen to them on what are feasible? I just want to understand the purpose of outreach.

So the outreach that I did was more just getting their assessment of the current real estate market, high level views of the site, and the triangle in general. The RFQ is where we are asking for specific things from them. We're saying what our goals are for the site and asking them to respond to those goals, and then selecting a development team based on how they address those goals.

Okay. In principle, I support staff recommendation, we give them first. But if we tell them we want this affordable housing model, I worry about if they can find money for infrastructure. So it's good to ask, but I just don't know that's I'm just concerned about what we get. Consul President Wolff, you have a question.

Thank you, Mayor. And, yeah, that kind of combines, Mayor, your question comment and with Councillor Robbins. My wondering, Sean, was, what control that we maintain clearly to, you know, our admin advantage to get cash flow to create those opportunities to later develop the park. But I just wanna make sure with mixed use that we, you know, still have that control of what we want developed there. So that was just my only feedback.

So are you supportive option one scenario one? Okay.

So I support option one, but I wanna know what the controls and criteria are to ensure that, it meets what our goals are for the area as well.

Okay. So Counselor Anderson, just go back to you. Do you support scenario one?

Redevelopment first. Yes. I think that prevailing wage is a huge thing.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

It's a big savings for them.

Yeah, all right. Councillor Schlack, do you have any question or

I support scenario one.

Okay. Councillor Shah, any questions comments? Yeah, go ahead.

A question, perhaps comment too. Sean, know as a TCAC liaison, I've heard a number of times from the committee that community service space, community space, as well as entertainment space is important. And if you combine those three, because we've seen Sherwood has a facility that does all three, so does Tualatin, that ends up being about 420 votes for that. So within the RFQ, is that one of the options? One of the developers could say we can integrate that with whether it's affordable housing or but that doesn't negate we could not not have that in the proposal.

Well, I would say, you know, if a if a mixed use building can provide housing and a ground floor that provides some of those, desired, options.

I I too, mayor, would support the recommendation, number one, but I would like to encourage so we're not paying like, I know PTSD is an event that's outside and gonna be in Portland. Be really nice to bring some of those events into Tigard. So I would support the option of looking at some sort of community space or entertainment Yeah. Okay. Combined facility.

Thank That's

in the Thank

publicly requested. Right? So Councilor Gudusi.

Thank you, Mayor. I would echo what Councilor Shah brought up. That is a big thing that a lot of people are wanting the community spaces and that sort of thing. But absolutely, choice one, redevelopment first.

Councilor Robbins?

The same choice one.

Youth counselor.

I'd support the first option. TAAC actually recently we had a conversation about this And our top three, just if you guys because I saw on the statistics, you only got, like, six responses from minors. So it was a very full TIAC meeting. We were talking about we wanted dog park, a skate park, and something that everyone kept talking about. I want like the the outdoor like pull up bars and bars and things like there are at Fowler. Don't know what that's called. It's the outdoor fitness equipment.

Pull up bar.

I thought you were talking

about Pull bars and stuff. It took me a second to get there. But Okay. So, just if you guys

want a little bit more youth input. We did talk about that recently. But yeah, I support the first option.

All right. Thank you. So we support first option, but we would like development option to be more consistent with the public demand, which is entertainment and public space.

Great. If I could answer Director Wolfe's earlier question about how do we keep control. The way we keep control is through the development agreement. So that's where, you know, we say what is important to the city and what we want to see in order for this developer to get the deal, basically. So I mean, there's a lot of desires that the city wants to have. Some of them might be in competition with each other. It's important to remember. It's a big site, but once it's been cut through with streets, it kind of gets a little bit smaller. So, you know, we'll do our best to balance all of the desires and needs with what a project that's financially feasible.

Yeah. Thank you. And and, you know, we are committed to having a park there regardless. I just want to make that clear. We still want a park.

Yes, definitely.

All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right. And I forgot to call everybody direct everyone directors, sorry. Alright. So now we're reconvene as city council. So so next item on agenda is review of the youth councilor position, which is request requested by councilors Schlack and Robbins. And our acting city manager, Trish, will present this item.

Good evening, honorable mayor and council. I'm acting city manager, Trish. And I'm pleased to bring before you the staff report on this item requested by counselors Schlack and Robbins. If you could go on to the next slide, please. A couple of things I want to highlight as we get started. This is intended to be a review of the overall program. It's not intended to speak to any individual or anything specific about the program except for its future. Any changes or direction we receive from counsel would be implemented for the next cycle. Recruitment is slated to begin here next month, and so we look forward to your direction. Some specific questions we'll be looking to you on relate to program goals and eligibility.

The questions are here, we'll revisit them again at the end. There's a couple of options, including establishing goals to evaluate the youth counselor program going forward or to consider some other approach that still encourages youth education and engagement in civic activities. The question on eligibility actually came from a community comment several months ago just about what young people are eligible to apply for the position. Next slide, please. Just some background in the program.

It was established with a resolution in 2019, and its purpose and eligibility are described both in the resolution on the website and on the application, and it's described here. Its primary intention is to encourage student participation and interest in civics, as well as to get input from tigered youth on city programs and appropriate policies. Eligibility, it's inclusive of students that reside within Tigard, any sort of school, junior or senior students with passing grades in good standing. On the next slide, I have a couple of discussion questions that perhaps can help facilitate the conversation on the specific council direction. This is entirely optional.

If you feel comfortable going right to the questions that we have before you, I'm happy to do that. I just wanted to share some of the questions I had been hearing and see if it would help lead to direction that we look forward to receiving. I wanted to share too that the members of the city manager's office did reach out to prior youth counselors to get their evaluation of the program. And after several attempts, unfortunately, they weren't able to get responses on those programs, but I wanted to thank a youth counselor, Hellick, for the feedback. I thought that was there were a lot of great observations and recommendations, so thank you for that.

Happy to answer any questions or to facilitate this discussion.

All right. Counselor, let's do questions first. Any questions before we dive into any discussion? No question. Okay. So maybe that I'll propose we talk about eligibility. Maybe that's that will be less that will be faster before we get into the program goals first. So current eligibility is students entering their junior or senior year at the time of application, resident of Tiger, but may attend any public or private schools, have and maintain passing grades. Anybody would like to see the eligibility changed? Counselor Robbins.

I would like to expand the eligibility to those students living in the unincorporated part of Tigard, who frankly feel like they live in Tigard, typically have attended Tigard elementary schools, they live in the TTSD district, but do not currently attend a high school within Tigard. So those students who have come up through Tigard schools, but then at high school, they go to a different high school. Or they go to, say, the one student who is the person who reached out, who I know, and I know the student, and he would be an excellent youth counselor. But he goes to Jesuit High School, which is in Beaverton. So even though he feels like he lives in Tigard, he lives on Bull Mountain, but since he's in the unincorporated part, he doesn't have another option, right?

He can't go to Beaverton, he can't go to Tualatin, Jesuit doesn't have a city council he can sit on, so he's missing out. And part of our problem is we don't have enough students, or we don't have a lot of students applying, and this would open it up. And it's a small number of students, but it's otherwise, they don't have any opportunity.

Thank you. Any use counselor?

I wanna second that a thousand times over. That was pretty much what I was going to say verbatim.

Okay, counselor

Schlack. Are members of the unincorporated area allowed to participate in TAAC?

Youth counselor, no?

Kind of. They are if they are attending a PTSD school. So if they are not attending a PTSD school,

they are not able to. We are trying to expand to unincorporated areas to follow your wording. But as of right now, if you are in an unincorporated area and living somewhere like Jesuit, no, you cannot participate in TAIAC. You have to be at a TTSD school.

And a TIGR resident.

And a TIGR you have to

be either a TIGR resident or a TTSD school.

So you to don't be a TIGR resident? No. Okay.

But like someone living in an unincorporated area and going to Jesuit could not.

Okay. Yeah. Because they didn't meet either one.

So Yeah.

While I'm open to considering changing eligibility requirements for TYAC, I'm utterly opposed to non residents having a point of privilege deliberate towards policy decisions that impact the city of Tigard. That's just I'm just utterly opposed to that idea.

Councilor Anderson? Agree or oppose to add non tiger resident use?

So just to clarify, it's not non Tiger, it's just Tiger unincorporated. It's not someone from Beaverton.

But they don't live in Tiger.

Right. But it's

The City Of Tiger.

That specific set of people.

Alright.

I guess my question is, do you report back to your fellow students? And if somebody, a Jesuit, would be reporting back to their students that wouldn't really recognize Tigard?

I report back to my fellow students, but not like at a school assembly or whatever. I report back to my friends and I say, oh my god, did you hear about this? Because I'm 16. But I wouldn't I don't do like this Wednesday morning, we had this happen last night. I don't do that for the school. I just do it as like a personal social social thing. So I don't think the school's really getting anything crazy from me. I don't think that like Jesuit would be impacted very or like yeah, for example.

You know, there there's a bunch of kids in unincorporated area that really feel like they're a part of tiger, for sure. Maybe we should annex them.

But Before we do that.

Before we do that, yeah, maybe just include them.

Not include them? Include them. Include them. Yeah. Councilperson Wolf, include youth who don't live in Tiger or not? I

do feel like, if I understand correctly, if you're unincorporated and you're going to a Tiger based school, you are included because you funnel you you are under that umbrella. So I do think it's a bit of a stretch to be an unincorporated and then be attending a school outside of our city boundaries. Okay. So I appreciate the student interest, but I I agree with councilor Schlaak.

Okay. Councilor Schlaak.

Thank you, mayor. I too agree with councilor Schlaak. I I think we need to for the reason stated.

Okay.

And with council president Wolf.

Councilor Gudusi.

Thank you, mayor. I do think that we should expand it, but I think we should expand it to the extent that TAYAK is, where if you have somebody in unincorporated that is in PTSD. So there are a

lot of

kids at Tiger High that are technically unincorporated. So I think they should have the opportunity.

That's why you and Councilor Robbins and Council Henderson want?

Yes. Councilor Robbins was a little bit

I wanna clarify. I am not certain that this slide is correct. I believe you could be a tigard youth counselor if you live in Tigard or go to a t t s d school.

That's tie up, I think.

You must okay.

Yep.

Okay. Thank you.

So.

So they were different, what I said and counselor Robinson said. Mine was very specifically, you should go to a t t s d school, whether or not you're unincorporated is fine. Okay. Versus in this example, it's Jesuit, which is the school in Beaverton, I believe. Yeah.

So you want Yeah. You actually want to

Limit.

Expand it to

Non resident, but

Non residents who still go to

the PTSD school. Correct.

So anyone in so what about someone who lives in Tualatin?

That will be two. That's included because if somebody goes to TGSD in Tualatin, that will Right. So, so we have three to three. And my personal feeling is that I agree with Counselor Schlag and Counsel Patterson Wolf and Counsel Shah that I do believe that if we're going to have somebody sitting on the dais, that person should be a Tiger resident. So the majority of the council is not going to are not willing to change the eligibility.

So we'll stay the way it is. All right. So let's talk about the purpose. So the question is, should the focus of supporting youth civic engagement be on education rather than a C in council meetings? That's so I start that way. So let's go this way. Youth counselors, what do you think?

I think that the focus should be supporting youth civic engagement. Or hold on, I'm the wording is a little bit confusing.

So, go ahead. Mayor, I

don't think that these are mutually exclusive things. Right.

So, I

don't think it's either education or a seat. I think that it should be both. Both. So, asking which one should it be at, I don't feel is an appropriate question.

Okay. So, let me just get to the bottom of this. Do you think we should have eliminate youth counselor program and focus on education component instead? No. No. Okay.

I think that it's an important program. It's helped me a lot. I haven't personally gotten to speak with any of the other previous youth counselors, but from what I've heard about them in TYAC from talking to Alex and a couple other older members, it's been a really great program for them too. And I think that it's important. And I don't think that it's really harming anyone is my biggest thing. And I think that it should be kept. But I think that also there should additionally be some more focus in supporting civic engagement in schools.

So are there so are there I'm just trying to phrase this question. Should we consider additional goals and measures for the next year to help counsel evaluate the program's success?

Yeah. Okay. I think that that would be good.

Okay.

All right. So and Counselor Anderson, should we eliminate the youth counselor program?

I think we probably should keep it. I've been with three or four of them now. They've all seem to get pretty good benefit for them. At least the councilor does. I don't know how report back to their peers. I think there's kind of a missing link there.

So there should be additional goals and measure for the next year that will help Yes. Evaluate the program? Yes. Councilperson Wolf. Oh, no, sorry, I skipped councilor Slack.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I would support removing the youth counselor position. So as some background, I first encountered this program as a budget committee alternate at age 25. And for reference, I turned 29 tomorrow. I sought a seat on the council in part to amplify the voices of younger residents, but I have not seen that this program achieve that goal during my time as a budget committee member and as a city councilor.

I also have in principle concerns about nonelected advisory positions serving directly on an elected governing body. Council decisions carry real consequences for Tygart residents from setting residential fees to appointing a mayor. Anyone who is given the privilege of deliberating towards those decisions at council meetings should, in my opinion, be accountable to voters. If community members want more young people on council, then they should elect them. As I confirmed with the city recorder this morning, council members need to be old enough to be a registered voter, which is at least 18 years old.

If an 18 year old is elected to council, I would welcome and fully support their service. And also, frankly, I struggle with to reconcile continuing an age based advisory seat on council. When council previously expressed skepticism about age based positions on other boards and committees, we should be consistent with that position. If we're against having age based positions on boards and committees for seniors, then why are we having age based positions on the city council for youths? It just it feels inconsistent to me.

So I would personally support using the resources that we're putting towards the youth counselor program to strengthening TAAC and making that a really great equitable, effective civic engagement program for as many residents and non residents, even TTSD members, as possible to learn about local government. That would be my preference for trying to enable civic engagement about youths.

Thank you, councilor Schlack. Councilor president Wolff. You mute yourself again. You mute a minute ago.

Sorry, Seventeen hour lag. I support a youth position if we still have students interested. They're nonvoting, so I feel the accountability is different. And I think it's a tremendous opportunity for a young person to engage in the civic debate in the work that we do. So, you know, clearly, I appreciated Asher's feedback and there's opportunities to grow and strengthen it, but I do support the position.

Thank you. And I assume you also support having additional goals and measure to measure yeah, okay, She gives me a thumbs up. Councilor Shah.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you to my council current councilors and their thoughts. Having been on the council since 2020, there's only one youth councilor I was not able to interact with directly as a councilor, and that was who had been appointed in 2019 under mayor Snyder who proposed this youth council position. I do not believe it has been equitable. I do not believe that there has been equitable access because it is limited to one individual. I think those dollars would be better spent going to TAEK and having a TAEK individual or individuals, among that, TAEK that they can consider who potentially would go to NLC.

I think there would be better reporting back and forth also, so we're not reliant on just one youth counselor to send a message, back and forth. So for those reasons, I do not support continuing the youth council program. And also, I think given budgetary constraints that we have now, that the resource allocation with staff time and dollars should be again redirected, and I think we can get a lot more impact if that is an educational component to TAIAC. And also, I'm also swayed by the age based position that councilor Schlack had mentioned. I do think that is an issue.

And as you all know, I've been a proponent of seniors and ensuring that seniors have a voice in the city. And I don't think we've had the same ability for them to have that voice. So, again, from an equity and access standpoint, I do not support continuing the youth counselor position.

Thank you.

Oh, can I

make one further suggestion? Please. Given that this was the former mayor, Jason Snyder's idea and his suggestion, I'm wondering if perhaps there could be a Washington County Commissioner's youth commissioner that he could consider. So just a thought. Okay.

Well, maybe we can talk to him when he comes the next update. Counselor, do you think?

Thank you, mayor. I would support continuing with the youth city council position. A few different things. One, I do think we need to increase the goals and measures. We need to make it more structured. In the ideal world, we would work with PCC, create a community based learning with it, get some college credit for it. In my opinion, I feel that it is equitable having them here at the table. If someone is 55, they can run for city council. Someone 18 cannot. So this gives them a voice when they're not able to otherwise. So whereas we already have a lot of people that are involved in a lot of our boards and committees that are over eight fifty five just by joining, that's not an option for our youth.

Thank you. Councilor Robbins.

I support keeping the position. I think it can be equitable, and then it's an open application, and people can apply. I do think we should advertise more, and perhaps try to interface with the school more. I would be more than happy to work with youth counselor Hellick on some of the ideas that they had in their letter that they sent to us, and also just talking to the school. The government teacher there is great, and it's something that we could maybe get more students interested in.

Councilor Schall.

I really appreciate that, Councilor Robbins. I know now having done this for four, almost five years, they've struggled each and every year despite robust communication, robust visits by counselors, direct, visits by the mayor. Matter of fact, we had zero, individuals who had applied for last year, and it really was, the mayor, former mayor, and council president Wolff who went to PTSD and made a compelling speech, but it was also post the deadline. So, again and I know the first after the resolution passed in 2019, they had just received five applicants. So it it's been robust communication and activity from both staff and counselors, but it just has been limited in the amount of individuals who applied.

And if you look at TAAC, there's well over what, 30 or 40 folks on TAAC. So we're doing something right there. Thank you.

Just to, if I could just reply to that I do know that junior and senior year are very, very busy years for the students, and it might be difficult to choose to spend that time every week here when you're not getting something that I mean, I guess you are getting something, it's something to put on your resume, something to to to use for college applications, but you're not getting college credit, you're not getting anything like that. And so perhaps we use this next year while we are reevaluating to talk, I know Cornelius has a robust youth program and Beaverton has a program, and just kind of explore what makes those programs more popular, if they are more popular.

All right. Councillor Schacht?

Thank you. And I appreciate where Councillor Robbins is coming from. And yes, Beaverton, Cornelius have very robust youth civic engagement programs. They also do not have youth counselor programs. It should be noted.

I think what I'm taking away from this is that there are a lot of counselors who want to continue the youth counselor program and yet despite year after year trying to get students to be interested in it, they're not really biting at this point. So I I respect that the council if a majority of the council wants to do a one year pilot refinement program, I just really wonder if we just sit down and think about it and look at the data and look at the history, is this really gonna work? Or are we just doing this because frankly, we're all really nice people who don't wanna say no to continuing a program with that has nice people involved. That's frankly where I'm coming from based on what I'm hearing from from my colleagues on here.

If that's

the way it is, it's majority viewpoint. I respect that. But I I seriously question the judgment behind it.

Well, thank you, counselors like. I think what I'm hearing is that whether you are you want to continue this program or you don't, I think all of us value youth involvement in local government. We just want to figure out a better way of doing it, right? So I don't want people to get that wrong idea that we don't want youth engagement. We're just trying to figure out what's the best way of doing it given our past history of having difficulty getting recruitments, having youth interested.

And also, we couldn't get past youth counselors feedback on what could be done better. So, think the majority has decided we want to continue. And I think this is a good opportunity for us to really sit down and evaluate and really grab some data because I think we are missing some data from previous youth counselors. So, I will propose so we are continuing. So maybe we can propose I will propose maybe a subcommittee to really drill down on study on focus on this issue such as how can we make it more make our advertisement or recruitment process successful, so we have more use apply.

So what have been the past challenge? Maybe the subcommittee can help figure out and what are the goals and measurements in the past in the next year that we really want to see. So we can come back in a year later and we can have this discussion again and say, okay, here are the goal and matrix and here's what the subcommittee recommended. Do we need it or not? If not, maybe there are better ways to help youth engage in civil gov in local government. So, I don't know if you are open to that kind of model. No? Okay. Okay. No, Councillor Gadduski?

Councillor Ragan? Councillor President Wolf?

So the slide is the big screen, so virtually. I'm just curious, I haven't I didn't hear I think those were nods, so I'm just curious what the trend is on counsel for a subcommittee.

I think Counselor Schlag and Counselor Shah do not want to see that. And Counselor Anderson, Gaddusi, and Robbins are in support of that idea. Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Go ahead, Counselor President Wolf.

Okay. Thank you. Well, I think and I I would as well. And I wanna be mindful of staff time, but of the four of us that want to see this as an option, if three out of four of us could be, you know, the subcommittee to try to explore that, recognizing their, you know, resources required of staff. But surely there's a way we could kind of pursue how do we do this better in the future and set clear goals. So I would support that.

Acting City Manager, Trish, do you have an input because it does require staff time to set goals and metrics.

Yes, absolutely. I think if we define exactly what we want to cover and within what time period, we can have just a focused investment of effort. And perhaps the sooner the better. Our team starts to pivot towards summer activities and ramping up for busy seasons. So my recommendation is perhaps a four to six week focused task to develop, refine the program, take some of the suggestions we heard. And we can also get into more detail about how we've marketed and recruited for this program and get counsel's feedback there too.

Okay. So go ahead, Counselor Shah.

Yeah, I'm wondering. We have a staff recommendation just to sunset the youth council role. Also have staff that had been working on this program for four to five years, and I'm wondering if we can't hear from them as opposed to setting up yet another subcommittee

Okay.

Which we are in we've got some budget challenges coming up. I I don't know if we need to yet again have another subcommittee. We have Okay. Several currently right now. So I would recommend I'd like to look to staff who have the expertise here, who know what we've done from a communication standpoint and a recruitment standpoint. And perhaps what we could do is hear from them, and then we can prior to make it a subcommittee.

Alright. Go ahead, councilor Robbins.

Do we have a staff recommendation to sunset

the proposal?

Yeah. AIS, the staff recommendation.

I recommend we we sunset the program.

And put the money towards, broader civic education initiative.

And that the TAYAK chair come to, workshop meetings like the Tigard High School Envoy to provide that connection. I mean, is a thought out staff recommendation to achieve the goal of civic education among our youths in Tigard that is an alternative to the youth counselor program. And I think it's a really well thought out one, I fully support that option for achieving that council goal. I do not support continuing the current program.

We have a majority of council who support continuing the program. So we have to figure out those issues that we've been facing and goals and metrics.

May I make a suggestion? Please. Following on the I think Counselor Shah's recommendation to hear from the staff involved in the program, we'd be happy to develop a memo and then attach it to these meeting materials. That memo can give the staff perspective in the program and perhaps provide a recommendation to how we might go forward. From there, council can let us know if you'd like that to come back before you. Does that seem reasonable?

I see him not. Council President Wolf, you raise your hand.

Thank you, mayor. Yeah. I did.

And

if willing, I can flip my decision. I disagree with I mean I mean, fundamentally, I think it's a great an opportunity for an individual, but that's just my own background. But I also wanna just recognize limited resources. And so if that solves this problem it seems like we talk about a lot of things and need to add it to a future conversation, and so I can flip and just call this, you know, moving forward as is. So or based on staff recommendation.

Councilor Schlach? I agree

with council president Wolf if the, solution is to support the staff recommendation in full, which is sunsetting the current youth counselor program and improving strengthening the TAYAK program and its relationship with council. Council council president Wolf, if that's what you're saying, then I'm in full agreement.

Yeah. I don't like it, but because I I just think it's the right thing to do. I I just we we add a lot of requests, move it down the road, and I I think we just I I'm fine with just supporting staff and their recommendation. And then I think that flips the majority

Well, to that haven't expressed my opinion yet, so go ahead.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but if I'm reading the information right, it says counsel is asked to provide direction on the youth counselor program, either establish measurable goals. All right, never mind. I'm done. It's fine.

Well, I think it's come down to me again. And, I, again, I just want to emphasize again that the decision we're making today is not about any particular person. And all we want to do is just encouraging youth engagement in local government in a more meaningful way. I do not like it, but for the reason that Counselor Schlag and Shah and Counselor Preston Wolf stated, I will support eliminating the youth program. So that's the majority.

Okay? All right. Any other comments or discussion? Seeing none, all right. There being no further business, the meeting is adjourned. Good night, Tiger.